Former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey registers as a Democrat

Associated Press

Posted:
04/16/2007 04:53:00 PM PDT

Updated:
04/16/2007 04:53:03 PM PDT

WASHINGTON - Maverick former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey, who represented Northern California in Congress from 1967 to 1982 and ran unsuccessfully again last year, has announced that he's switching party registration and becoming a Democrat.

McCloskey, who was an original author of the Endangered Species Act, made his scorn for the modern Republican Party clear during his primary campaign against former GOP Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy last year. He contended that leaders like Pombo and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay had been corrupted by power.

After losing to Pombo, McCloskey endorsed Pombo's Democratic opponent, Jerry McNerney, who beat Pombo in the general election.

McCloskey has now made his allegiance to the Democrats official, telling friends in an e-mail sent over the weekend that he has reregistered as a Democrat.

"I finally concluded that it was a fraud for me to remain a member of this modern Republican Party," wrote McCloskey, who farms with his wife Helen in Yolo County.